Major Role of NAD-Dependent Lactate Dehydrogenases in 4 High Optically Pure L-Lactic Acid Production by 5 Thermophilic Bacillus coagulans 6 7

† L.W. and Y.C. contributed equally to this study. 17 * Corresponding author. 18 Mailing address: Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 19 100101, People’s Republic of China 20 E-mail: yub@im.ac.cn (B. Yu) 21 Phone/Fax: +86-10-64806132 22 AEM Accepts, published online ahead of print on 12 September 2014 Appl. Environ. Microbiol. doi:10.1128/AEM.01864-14 Copyright © 2014, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.